What part - if any! - does your bait play in your captures and why? In the second part of John Baker’s mini bait series, he takes a detailed look at what exactly we’re all throwing into the lake!
Photographs by John Baker and Friends
JB IN REFLECTIVE MOOD
or put more simply, how quickly we’re likely to get a bite from our bait! This concept might see us refer to two categories of boilie: short-term bait, and long-term bait. Short-term baits would have little or no food value and as such, are less likely to be nutritionally beneficial. They may perhaps contain higher levels of key ingredients, flavours and additives to increase their smell, taste and overall attraction. More emphasis will be placed on quick, even instant attraction, than on food value. Ready-made baits with chemical preservatives, and also plastic sweetcorn for instance, and other artificial baits all fall within this category. We know that carp can be tricked into eating these, in spite of their make-up, rather than because of it. It’s also important to note that these types of bait would be far less effective - even useless - if not presented on a self-hooking, Hair Rigtype set-up. It should not be forgotten that before the Hair Rig was invented, anglers buried their hooks inside baits and would have to strike when they had a bite. Hair Rigs, in all their variants, are just self-hooking rigs, and their use has eliminated a great deal of the skill previously required to convert bites into hooked fish.